Bentley, Phyllis

(British, 1894–1977)

Bentley was born in Halifax and educated at the University of London. The landscapes, history, and inhabitants of her native West Riding of Yorkshire sustain much of her writing. Begin with A Modern Tragedy (1934), her vivid and occasionally harrowing treatment of Yorkshire manufacturing communities during the Depression of the 1930s. Inheritance (1932) opens a series of books following the Oldroyd family's rise over generations in the textile industry. Their story concludes with nineteenth-century affluence in A Man of His Time (1966). Her other historical novels include Manhold (1941), which is set in eighteenth-century Yorkshire. Bentley is also the author of several books on the Brontës and the autobiography O Dreams, O Destinations (1962), which reflects tellingly on the condition of single women in British society.

Lettice Cooper, the Brontës  DH